Succumbing To This Darkness
by bittersweetmelody47
Summary: A Sylar character study. Outlines certain events of humiliation and disappointment throughout Gabriel's life, leading to his transition from Gabriel to Sylar. This is my version of his background story. Spoilers only for 1x10 "Six Months Ago".


Disclaimer: _Heroes_ is the property of NBC.

Succumbing To This Darkness

When Gabriel is six he discovers that he doesn't like playing games, not like the other kids.

The bell rings for recess and his classmates rush outside in pairs, giggling and talking loudly, and he trails slowly behind them all.

He sits on the bench near the swings and takes a book out of his backpack, which he takes with him outside everyday, and reads.

But sometimes he watches.

He watches as the boys and girls run around the playground, how they climb the monkey bars, or go down the slide, or play games of their own, like tag and hide-and-seek, and he wonders why he doesn't just join them.

The reason he doesn't is that he doesn't enjoy the playing like the others do. They all have fun, laugh, wear themselves out, but he just views it as silly. As if they should just grow up or something.

But they're six, and he knows that. Six year olds are supposed to do these things.

He looks up from his book as voices grow nearer, and he sees a group of his classmates not far ahead of him, a girl in the middle of them speaking, apparently the leader of them all.

"Um, let John be 'it' this time, and the safe place will be…" The girl looks around, then over at him, and he avoids her eyes. "The safe place will be where Gabriel is."

He can feel their eyes on him and he reads the same sentence over and over without realizing it.

He grows to hate recess.

&

When he is eight the teacher asks him to stay behind after class.

He approaches Ms. Hayes' desk as everyone else leaves, slinging a strap of his backpack over one arm, and there are butterflies in his stomach.

He hopes he didn't do anything wrong. His parents, his mother most of all, would be really angry at him if he did.

"Gabriel," Ms. Hayes says, and in her outstretched hand is a folded letter, "Would you give this to your parents for me?"

He nods, taking the letter, and she seems to sense how nervous he is, for she smiles at him and adds, "Don't worry, Gabriel. It's something very good."

He lets forth a tentative smile.

&

He waits quietly on one of the chairs outside the office, pulling anxiously at the sleeves of his sweater.

His mother had been in the counselor's office for about ten minutes now, and even though Ms. Hayes' had said he wasn't in trouble, he wonders why his mother was taking so long in there.

What are they talking about?

Nearly a minute later the door opens and his mother comes out.

He can see the tears in her eyes.

He jumps up. "Mom? What's wrong?"

She looks down at him, and a smile spreads across her face. "Nothing's wrong, Gabriel."

Her hand reaches out to smooth his dark combed hair. "I'm just so proud of you."

The next day he is enrolled in advanced classes.

&

When he is ten, he learns that a life he already hates can easily become so much worse.

He walks outside of the school building and onto the playground.

Only one more year and he'll be in middle school, and he won't have to deal with recess anymore.

"Hey, Gabriel!"

He turns, only to have a fist connect with his jaw, and he falls to the ground, his glasses lost from him.

He looks up into a face he despises, a classmate of his named David who never left him alone.

David looks down at him, a smirk on his face. "God, Gabriel, does your mother still dress you?"

A few of David's friends come up behind him, getting in on the action, and their laughter is harsh and biting.

"Boys!"

David's friends immediately back away hurriedly at the sound of the teacher's voice, but David merely stares at him, his eyes malicious. "If you tell, I swear I'll follow you home and make your life a living hell."

Hate boils in him but he knows he'll have to comply. He can't make things worse than they already are, and reporting David to the teacher will do just that.

His hands fumble for his glasses, which he finds a few feet behind him, and he puts them back on as the teacher stands before him and David.

"Boys? What's going on here?'

David quickly puts on a friendly smile for the teacher. "Nothing, Mrs. Jennings. Gabriel just fell down and I came to help him up."

David extends his arm down to him, and he takes it because he really doesn't have another choice.

He stands up and resists the urge to put a hand to his aching jaw.

The teacher studies him. "Is this true, Gabriel?"

He nods, and he catches David's wicked grin.

After the teacher walks away, David says, "You just did yourself a big favor."

He turns and walks away, disgusted with himself. Why couldn't he, for once, stand up for himself?

He approaches an empty swing and sits down in it, the pain in his jaw almost unbearable.

Luckily, his glasses aren't broken, but if there's a bruise, how can he explain that to his mother? She takes notice of everything.

He pushes himself backward, then forward, fixing his eyes only on the light blue sky, and as he rises higher and higher, he feels like he can fly.

It's a feeling he wishes he never had to let go.

&

Dinner is quiet that night for him and his mother, but then again, it always is.

He pushes the food around his plate with his fork.

"Where's dad?" He asks, even though he already knows the answer.

"At the shop. He'll be home soon," His mother responds, a little too quickly, and he can sense her disapproval. His father didn't have to stay at the shop so late, but he chose to.

He isn't stupid; he knows his father prefers working than being at home with his family. He and his father barely speak five words to each other a day as it is.

"So, Gabriel," His mother says after a brief silence. "how was school today?"

'Like it is every day,' He thinks bitterly. 'A nightmare.'

But he smiles, trying not to wince when pain shoots through his jaw. "Fine."

&

When he's fourteen, he has his first real crush.

Her name is Emily, and she has long blonde hair that he wants to run his fingers through, and emerald green eyes he thinks he can lose himself in.

But she's part of the popular crowd, and that's a place he's never been and never will be.

She sits in front of him, and it's just like any other day, his eyes transfixed on her golden hair, but for the first time, she turns to face him.

He hopes she doesn't take notice of the blush that he knows is rising to his face.

"Could I borrow a piece of paper?" She asks, her face hopeful.

He merely nods, because that's all he can pretty much do right now, and takes a piece of paper out of his binder and hands it to her.

She smiles, and suddenly there's an odd swooping feeling in his stomach, like he missed a step while walking down the stairs. "Thanks."

When the bell rings and he goes to his locker, he can't prevent the small smile that appears upon his lips.

But then he hears her: Emily, talking with her friends around the corner.

He listens carefully.

"So, Emily," A girl says, her voice bubbling with excitement, "I think that Gray boy likes you. He stares at you all the time."

Laughter from the other girls accompany this statement.

"Who?" Emily asks.

"That Gray boy-- what's his name? Um… oh, Gabriel, I think." The girl responds.

Emily snorts. "That boy I asked for a piece of paper from? Oh, _please_. Like that'd ever happen. I'm way out of his league."

The girls dissolve into more laughter.

He slams his locker shut and goes to his next class.

The smile is gone.

&

"You could be anything you wanted to be, Gabriel," His mother says, and he can actually feel a migraine coming on.

"I know, mom," He replies, irritated. " Let's just not talk about this right now, okay?"

"But you're sixteen now!" His mother persists, cleaning the kitchen counter with a wet dishrag. "It's time you start thinking about your future career."

"I am thinking about it," He sighs. " I think about it all the time."

"Well, what do you want to be?"

He hesitates for a second, then says, " I don't know yet."

But then he adds, before his mother can say anything, "Could you just say it's okay for me to be whatever I wanted to be? To do whatever makes me happy?"

His mother stares at him, a soft smile on her face. " That's what I just said, Gabriel. You could be important, successful, people could look up to you--"

He can't take it anymore. "I'm going to bed."

"But Gabriel--"

"I'm tired." He snaps, continuing on down the hallway to his room.

That night he dreams of a father who smiles at him and says he's proud to have him as a son, and a mother who says 'You could be anything you wanted to be', just not in the way his real mother means it.

&

When he's twenty-one, his father dies of a stroke.

When the doctor tells him and his mother this, his mother collapses on a nearby chair and cries, and there's a ringing in his ears that remains for a long time afterward.

After the doctor gives them both an apologetic look and retreats, he sits down next to his mother, putting an arm around her.

His mother looks up at him, tear streaks on her face. "God has a reason for everything, Gabriel. He saw fit to take your father home to Heaven now."

He nods, but stays silent.

Within a week he takes over the shop, picking up where his father left off.

&

When he's twenty-three, he decides to finally move out and get an apartment of his own.

"You don't really don't have to do what your father did, working at that shop," His mother says at dinner, and he tries as hard as he can to hold back an annoyed sigh.

"I want to," He replies for the millionth time. "It makes me happy."

"But what kind of career is that? There's so many better opportunities for you."

Sometimes he hates his mother. But then he's overwhelmed with guilt, because you're not supposed to hate your mother. She only wants what's best for him, after all.

But he knows he can't live with her high expectations any longer. Going through these conversations repeatedly every day will just drive him insane.

"I'm thinking about getting a place of my own," He says after a moment of silence, and his mother stills, her fork perched on her plate.

"I just think it's time I have my own life," He adds hurriedly. "I am twenty-three, mom."

A few seconds go by and his mother finally looks up at him, and he feels horrible when he sees her teary eyes.

He puts his hand over hers. "I'll visit often, mom, I promise."

Then he looks back at his plate, for he can't stand the look of loneliness in her eyes.

&

A few years go by and he gets more and more used to working at the shop, to his life.

He's grown to enjoy working with watches and clocks; fixing things has become a talent of his that he never knew he had, and he gets so lost in taking things apart and putting them back together that he often finds that time rushes away from him and suddenly it's time to close up.

He puts a bed in the back of his shop because sometimes he's just too tired at night to return to his apartment. But he knows that that's not really the reason. The silence of his empty apartment is louder than anything else, and he often just lies there in his bed, staring at the ceiling.

It's only at the shop that he's truly able to sleep, with the ticking of the clocks to calm him, and the reassurance of being surrounded by the things he loves.

And everything's fine.

Until that day he looks up and says 'Can I help you?' and Chandra Suresh approaches him with a thick book in his arms and a secretive smile upon his face.

&

When he's twenty-five he kills a man for the first time.

A man by the name of Brian Davis, a man with the ability of telekinesis.

When he strikes Brian and the man falls to the floor with a heavy thump, he's momentarily shocked at what he has just done.

But then he sees the blood pooling around the man's head and it unleashes something in him, something angry, something hungry.

He puts his glasses on and descends upon the man's already stiff body and gets to work, because what he's doing is, after all, an evolutionary imperative.

He knows he's right.

&

There's this voice in his head now, and with each passing day it speaks more and more.

It's a voice that he's never heard before yet sounds oddly familiar, and it suggests horrible things, and has the laughter of a madman.

It says its name is Sylar, and it never leaves him alone.

He just wants it to go away.

&

He sits in his apartment at the kitchen table, holding his head in his hands.

He can't sleep anymore.

'You're strong now, Gabriel,' The voice says. 'You're stronger in all the ways you wished you could be. You've killed someone. You can't just stop now. Not when you're finally important. You're better than everyone else. You have abilities that they don't, abilities that people daydream about. And you can get more, and soon, everyone will be looking to you, like a God. Isn't that what you want?'

His head throbs. He rubs his temples.

'But first, you need to teach those who wronged you a lesson.' The voice continues, louder now, 'Those who humiliated you, made you feel worthless… you need to show them what a big mistake they've made. And I'll tell you how. Listen to me, Gabriel…'

And he does, because maybe it might bring him some relief.

&

When he arrives at David's house David can barely acknowledge him from where he's watching TV in the living room when he waves his hand and throws David against the wall.

He pins him there, and David can only look at him in horror.

"Hello, David," He says, and his voice is different, deeper and gruff. "Remember me?"

David merely looks at him, so he pushes him higher up the wall and adds maliciously, "The boy you bullied in the fifth grade? The boy you made life a living hell for?"

Comprehension dawns in David's eyes and he utters, "Gabriel? Gabriel Gray?"

David's mention of Gabriel unleashes something crazy in him again, something overcome with rage.

"No," He hisses, telekinetically clamping his fingers around David's neck. "Sylar."

He looks behind him as David gasps and sputters for air and he spots the set of butcher knives on the kitchen counter. With a jerk of his fingers the butcher knives fly across the room and into David's ankles, wrists, stomach, and chest.

He releases his hold on David's neck and as David can breathe again he lets out a scream and writhes in pain.

Suddenly, disgusted with the noise, he holds his finger up to David's neck and with a quick jerk of it David's neck is split open, the blood spraying everywhere, oozing down to puddle and spread on the floor.

He watches as David's head slumps forward.

Only then does he smile.

&

When he arrives back at his apartment he notices the blood on his hands.

And all he can think is 'Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.'

He writes it over and over on the wall, chanting it in his head, as if the act would lessen the severity of what he had done.

&

With Emily he tries a different approach, perhaps one not so gory.

Not that he isn't up for a messy killing, he just thinks he should shift his tactics a bit every now and then.

When he slams her against the wall she attempts to fight him, but he laughs and slides her up the wall effortlessly.

"Who are you?" Emily asks him fearfully, her eyes widening in disbelief as she realizes that nothing was really holding her up.

"Just a person you used to know in school," He says. "You said that you were way out of my league…"

After a moment, she replies tearfully, "Look, I don't know who you are. But whatever I did to you in school, I'm sorry. I was young; I didn't know any better."

His eyes narrow and he begins to clamp down steadily on her neck. "You didn't know any better?"

"Please… my son--" Emily rasps, shutting her eyes tight. "I'm all he has…"

Suddenly the hold on Emily is released, and she slides to the floor as her son opens his bedroom door and says, "Mommy?"

She looks around frantically, but by then he's already gone.

&

He walks down a dark alleyway, his head pounding and his stomach churning.

'You fool,' The voice berates him harshly. 'You were supposed to kill her.'

'It was a moment of weakness,' He answers. 'It won't happen again.'

'No, it won't. I'll make sure of that…'

Emily's voice rang in his ears: 'My son… I'm all he has.'

He let her go. He let her go because what she said made him remember something.

_(The casket is lowered into the earth and his mother looks up at him, wiping a handkerchief across her eyes. "You're all I have now, Gabriel." And she reaches up to rest her hand on the side of his face.)_

As he reaches the end of the alleyway a homeless man approaches him, but before the man can utter a word, he lifts his finger and slits the man's throat open, and as the man falls to the ground the voice inside his head laughs, and within seconds he begins to laugh too, the sound of it insane and loud in the silence of the night.

He kills because he can.

Because killing is the only thing he knows now.

&

The list is what's most important now. All those people with abilities they don't deserve… his destiny is to hunt them down and claim them as his own, to make them more useful than those people could ever have made them.

And as he snaps Chandra Suresh's neck in his own taxicab, he knows, now, that there's no going back.

Sylar is important.

Sylar is significant.

Sylar has a destiny to fulfill.

And Gabriel Gray is gone forever.

No one can stop him now.

His journey has just begun.

_Fin._


End file.
